I am planning to go through a DBS surgery in near future. I believe there are two brands supplying the devices
- Boston Scientific
- Medtronix
Can someone refer me to some literature where two devices are compared for directional rechargeable type?
As I patient should I even care or let the neurologist/neurosurgeon decide?
Thanks
Abbott Labs also supplies DBS solutions.
I recommend you should take an active role in deciding which system is best for you.
Some important considerations; ( just some key ones)
- bilateral or only one side? I recommend going ahead with bilateral to minimize surgeries and recovery while maximizing symptomatic impacts
- DBS target: STN or GPi? Will depend on your symptoms Must discuss w/ your neurologist.
- multi-segmented directional leads will provide the most flexible therapy options over time and can help address placement accuracy issues if needed
- rechargeable battery vs ~5 to 7 year battery
- robotic vs manual lead placement. The very best DBS neurosurgeons use robotic assist to ensure lead placement accuracy which is critical for DBS
Hope this helps.
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I am a 69 years old Parkinson's Patient from the San Francisco Bay Area and was dragonized with PD in early 2019 and planning to go for the DBS surgery in two weeks at UCSF for my dominant Motor Symptoms of Stiffness, Slowness, Rest Tremors.
I totally agree with the two previous replies that you need to be involved in decision making for your DBS Target Selection and to a lesser degree with the Stimulator Devices vendors as it also depends upon the device options offered by your DBS surgery center. I am going for the GPi target and the Medtronic's Percept RC6 device with an initial unilateral surgery followed in the 3-6 months time frame by the 2nd side lead insertion surgery based on my criterion. Currently this Medtronic device is the smallest DBS device with a battery life of 15 years but requires typically weekly charging and also has a brain sense leads that can be later used to offering a truly adaptive DBS where your DBS stimulation is based on real time intensity levels of your specific motor symptoms.
I hope this helps,
My husband had DBs a year 1/2 ago. He went with Medtronic, we had a connection with the company a friend worked there, and the support their people ( reps) provide for questions and after care was great. The medtronic tech was at our first 2 programming appoitments. We also liked that medtronic is the original developer, and I believe has the newer technology on the leads that are implanted that now can not just output the directional stimulation into the brain, but gather information and data from the brain . I think having this brain data will eventually be really helpful in programming and possibly other benefits. I cant remember tho if the BS system has this or not . ALso I recommend talking to a rep from both medtronic, and Boston scientific. They know sooooo much about the systems. sometimes more than the docs do. I dont think you can make a wrong decision. DBS has improved my husbands life dramatically.
Yes. 3 good companies BS, Medtronics and Abbott supply great tech. The real ( IMHO) breakthroughs will come when VCR stimulation per Peter Tass at Stanford is finally made available for DBS.
+ when neurofeedback can reliably influence programming. 
You might want to wait for a closed loop version of DBS. Robust adaptive deep brain stimulation control of in-silico non-stationary Parkinsonian neural oscillatory dynamics (2024) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/388... abstract only!
Yes, My husband has the medtronic percept , If you need a name of a rep at medtronic let me know
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